His Father's Son
by Mockingbird Quester
Summary: In the reboot universe, Carol Marcus becomes pregnant but Jim refuses to give up custody. Jim and David's relationship as father and son. Set in the same universe as the "His Daughter's Mind" and "His Daughter's Request". WIP.


Author's note: this takes place in the same universe as "His Daughter's Mind" and "His Daughter's Request", but involves James Kirk and his child.

If there was one thing Jim Kirk liked more than a beautiful woman, it was a beautiful and intelligent woman. Carol Marcus fit both criteria, so Jim figured he could be forgiven for being a little too enamored to be cautious. To be fair, the odds of her contraceptive implant failing and himself forgetting to get his monthly sperm suppressant hypo were nearly astronomical. Surely Spock would say the odds were 70,653 to 1 or some such statistic.

But they had slipped, and Carol was from the old school of thought that once she was pregnant it would be a crime against nature to abort the fetus. Most women, especially those working in space, would not even consider carrying a child while still young and trying to build their scientific career.

Carol Marcus was proving to him again that she was not most women. Jim both loved and resented her for it.

When she turned around and said she would raise their son alone, without any financial or emotional support from him, Kirk was both hurt and relieved. On the one hand, it was insulting that she didn't think he was capable of being any kind of father. One the other, he had never had a father himself and couldn't imagine how to be a good one. In the end, he decided to simply cut ties with her and leave her to her life.

Not long afterwards, he was complaining about the situation to Spock and Bones. He expected the lecture that resulted from the doctor that he owed it to his child to try to be in his life, but he hadn't expected Spock's input to be that he believed Jim would be a "more than adequate parental figure". He also remarked that Spock Prime had mentioned once that Jim Kirk had had two sons and that perhaps the captain should contact him for input.

Spock Prime, now Ambassador Salak, wouldn't go into details but did advise him that his reality's Jim had always regretted letting Carol push him out of his son's life, and that his son had died before they could establish a relationship. Jim tried to imagine himself years in the future, never meeting his son until he was grown and losing a child he had never even known

That same night James Kirk submitted the legal paperwork that allowed for mandatory prenatal paternity testing, with the stipulation that if the child was his he be required to provide financial support and be allowed 12 weeks visitation per year.

Carol immediately contacted him in fury. He supposed he should be grateful she was on a different ship at that point or she might have attacked him. Not that she scared him or anything, much.

"James T. Kirk! You damn fool! This is my son and I don't need you butting in!"

"Maybe you don't but he will. I grew up without a father, and no child of mine will experience that."

She had some choice words about his sexism and messiah complexes before cutting him off.

It didn't matter. The day his son was born he was able to watch on a viewscreen from halfway across the galaxy. David was red, with a scrunched up face that all newborns have. It didn't matter. He was strong and healthy and beautiful.

The first time he held his son in his arms, David was nearly four months old. He had his father's blue eyes and blond curls that could have been inherited from either his father or mother. They studied each other carefully, then David yawned and fell asleep on his father's chest. Jim held him there for the next two hours until he woke up for a feeding of replicated breast milk, and Jim cursed himself as ten kinds of fool for almost allowing himself to miss this.

He had expected Carol to still be upset with his interference at that first visit, so he was shocked when she presented him with a stack of holos of David and a data copy of David's birth certificate which listed him as a biological parent and the baby's full name as "David Samuel Marcus".

Carol smiled at his disbelieving expression, "Never let it be said I don't lose gracefully. I remembered how much your brother meant to you and thought it was appropriate."

He never loved her more than at that moment. There seemed to be nothing Jim could say to that except, "Thank you, so much."

Her hand reached out to brush back their son's curl from his sleeping face. "You're a daddy now. You can't let yourself get killed out there or he's going to grow up without a father, like you did. Prove me wrong and stay alive until he's grown."

He placed his hand gently over hers. "I'll try Carol. I don't want to hurt either of you."

She met his eyes and whatever she saw there must have reassured her. "Alright then. Be sure you don't."

Over the next seven years there were shore leaves arranged to be near wherever Carol Marcus was working, and datastreams and holovids and gifts from every planet he visited and anything else he could manage to stay in touch with his boy. He couldn't see him much in person, but his childhood with his own mother in space had taught Jim that your child could still love you despite not being physically present enough and he managed to remain a constant in David' s life while he and Carol experienced an on again-off again romance. They were both too headstrong to really make it work but it never seemed a problem, even when Carol married a very nice scientist she worked with and David gained a stepfather. "He's nice but he's not you Da," was the five year old's wise comment on the situation.

Still Jim felt he must be doing something right, because when he would describe his son's latest exploits (which often involved trouble and resulted in Carol exclaiming, "He is most definitely YOUR son!") to Bones or Spock Prime, they would acting approvingly and basically let him know he had done the right thing. Spock, a father of a little girl himself now, would suggest ways to "expand your progeny's intellectual capabilities" which usually resulted in shore leaves to various museums and historical sites. Luckily, Jim learned to ignore those suggestions after a few years and just enjoy spending time with his son.

He felt extremely content with being a father from a distance, until David was seven years old, and he received a communication that made his heart stop in his chest. That was the day he suddenly realized that what it really meant to be a parent wasn't pride or affection - it was the intense, terrifying fear that you would fail the child in your protection, and his love was about to be put to the test.


End file.
